


Sacrifices Made

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alcohol, Brief racism at the start, Drugging, Family, Gen, Memories, god this was hard, im so bad at tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 20:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14655180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: The hags voice came to him again, piercing and gravely, shattering the happiness of the memories and bringing dread back to his heart. Molly closed his eyes, his heart shattering into a million tiny pieces of agony as he realised that there was no escaping this. No escaping her. No escaping them.“If you give me what you want, I’ll give them back to you.”Molly knew she was telling the truth, and she wouldn't stop until she had what she wanted.





	Sacrifices Made

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, this isn't too good you guys, I was in writing funk (still am) but I thought this was good and was edited enough for posting. I don't know why I keep writing these about my favourites, but I'll try and mix them up a bit. Hope this is alright x

A memory- pulled straight from that deep dark place he holds close to his heart and hidden behind cages in his mind, pulled before his eyes for all to see, reliving it again.

Silently, he stands, awkwardly in a too-big brown shirt that may have well been a sack and the same shade as the ground he awoke in, his hair too short, his horns too dull looking. He stood stock still as a large figure- Dragonborn, scales black, like the late night time darkness he was hiding in- rushed him, fist raised high.

Looking back, the words he spewed at Mollymauk were not what rooted him in place, the angry calls of curses and insults, “demon-spawn” and “devil blood” and “monster” ringing in his ears like a battle cry. It was the fear of death, again he supposes, with nobody but a man who wanted his blood spilt across the dirt.  He couldn’t speak, his voice died in his throat as his efforts to call for help died with it and the man came closer, and closer, his fist raised high and Molly could do nothing more than stand there and look at the oncoming pain in fear-

Green shoved its way into his vision, scared green skin tightening its hold around chipped black scales, the fist covered in cuts and calluses as a flaming fan rushed into view, the tips right underneath a scaled neck and the other resting gently just above his privates.

Molly’s breath rushed out of him in one relieved breath, Bosun growling low at the tiefling’s would be attacker as Ornna stood as beautiful and poised as ever, her fan burning the fabric of the man's pants just slightly. Even in the memory, Molly couldn’t remember what was being said, but it resulted in the dragonborn leaving in a huff and angry, hateful looks shot back at Molly, a warm and heavy hand resting on his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” Bo had said, a wide grin splitting his face as Ornna put her fans away and came up on Molly’s other side, threading her arm through his. “We’re all freaks and monsters here. No one messes with our own. We’re family, we all look after each other. Right?”

The memory faded in a flash of white, replaced by another.

Yasha, standing over him, his eyes swimming with the poison pumping through his veins. Her snarl had warped into something feral and protective, her sword glowing a heavenly light and her fist clenched so tightly Molly could see her veins stark against her pale skin from his place on the floor. He reached up and yanked the dart out of his neck with shaking fingers and when he yelped from the pain, Yasha’s eyes darted to him and narrowed in silent fury.

“Stay away,” she called simply to the trees, the men retreating back where they came from after the pounding of Yasha’s heavy footfalls echoed through the valley. “Stay away and never come back.”

Even with his heartbeat pounding in his ears Molly heard sniggers, catcalling from the trees. “You need your big sister to look after you?” One called, and Molly saw red robes out of the corner of his eye. Another voice, one belonging to the person he knew held the blow gun, chortled “Your mummy’s come to save you!”

In the blink of the eye, Yasha -she was the new girl from the carnival he remembered later- roared louder than a thunder crack and charged, screams and death following the swift hiss of her blade as it sailed through the air. “I told you,” she snarled, prowling back to Molly “Stay away.” She knelt down by the tieflings head and with surprising softness for someone of her stature asked. “Are you alright? Are you hurt? What happened?”

His words caught in his throat, but he sent his blurry eyes sharply towards the dart, lying in the ground and Yasha lifted it in nimble fingers and growled. “Alright,” gently, she hoisted Molly in her arms and carried him back to the carnival. “Poison. Not to worry, Ornna's got something to take care of you. Don’t scare me like that, I’m not letting you out of my sight until you get better.”

A world shifted as the memory changed and Molly held his breath.

His hands were in Toya’s hair, threading brightly coloured flowers into the braids as Gustav sipped at some rum and tea concoction that Toya wrinkled her nose at. The sun was bright, too bright for the time of the morning and warm. The warmth was welcomed, having made camp at a snow-covered town a week since coming here.

“You know, kid,” Gustave yawned, leaning back in the ugly broken chair as he watched the clouds. “You need a name.” Molly looked at him with confusion. “You know, a name. Everyone needs a name, like Gustav and Toya.” At this Toya sat up straighter, tipped her head back and grinned at Molly. Gustav thought for a moment. “Do you want a ridiculous one or a serious one?”

With less than a second to think, Molly pulled one hand out of Toya’s hair and held up one finger. _First one_. Gustave grinned. He looked at the sky and the rolling clouds and birds flying past. He remembered that song, about the seabird, the ridiculous one, and could not think of anything that would fit better. “Mollymauk.”  He determined, turning back to the purple tiefling. His eyes were bright, his grin large enough to show the points of his fangs and he nodded. “Alright, Mollymauk it is!”

“What about a last name?” Toya asked, picking up a flower from Molly’s pile and twirling it between her palms. “Everyone needs a last name.”

“Hmm…” Gustav thought, sipping his tea. He turned to Toya after a moment. “Do you remember those halflings that used to come? With the crystal ball?” Toya nodded so he turned to Mollymauk again. “We used to have these visitors I suppose they were, who thought they could tell fortunes with this giant crystal ball. They wanted a place at the carnival, but we wouldn’t give it to them. But, I think you coming here and joining our family was fate.” He paused, and Molly looked at him with expectant excitement. “How do you feel about Tealeaf?”

Gustav thought that if Molly nodded any harder, his head would fall off his neck. “Mollymauk Tealeaf.” Gustav tried it out on his tongue and smiled. “Welcome to the family Mollymauk Tealeaf."

Another disorientating change of frame and Molly was reliving something else.

He was sitting at a bar with Nott, an old and grotty one, it stunk of alcohol and his coat kept getting caught in the sticky table. As one, they threw back a shot, blinking at the horrid taste and licking their lips to get it off of the corners of their mouths.

They weren’t drunk, just buzzed enough for the colours to blend to a comfortable fuzziness and their laughter to be louder than really needed. The clock on the wall struck midnight and Molly looked sideways at Nott, slumping deeply in her hair and her head pillowed on her hand.

Molly stood. “Come on kid,” he sighed, and grabbed Nott, holding her in his arms like he had been doing it all his life. “Time for bed.” He made it up the stairs, scowling at his coat each time it swept under his feet and at the wall every time he bumped into it. In his arms, Nott was tense and still, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid to speak and ask what was going on.

Swinging the door to Nott’s room open with his foot, Molly saw Caleb already asleep, buried under pillows and blankets and his jacket laid over the covers. He knelt as he sat Nott down, ruffled her hair, kissed her head and paused. “I’m sorry,” he whispered once he realised, fearful eyes as wide as Nott’s confused ones. “I’m so sorry. That was just always something I did with Toya when she tried to stay up too late at the campfire. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking-” the words were coming too fast and not even Molly could keep up with them but Nott stood on her toes and placed her hand over his mouth.

“It’s ok,” she whispered, kind and quiet. “I don’t mind. It’s ok, really.”

“I guess I just think of you as a little sister.” It was out of his mouth before he realised he’d said it, and he watched Nott’s eyes widen once again. “Oh fuck, I’m sorry, I must be drunker than I thought.”

She was grinning, the kind that showed all her miss-match teeth and threw her arms around his neck. “Uh,” Molly mumbled, confused. “I should go-”

Nott pulled away, sprinting to a little box under her bed and dragged it roughly out. Caleb stirred at the noise but stayed asleep. She rifled through it, muttering under her breath as she looked for something and pulled it out with a triumphant grunt. Shoving the box back under the bed, Nott padded back to Molly holding something gold carefully between her fingers. She held it out for Molly to take.

It was a gold chain, thin and delicate, a small black gem curled between platinum bands holding it all together. “I don’t know what it is or what it does but it was pretty.”

The image faded with Molly throwing his arms around the goblin as she carefully slipped it over his horns and onto his neck where it was to stay.

A new scene, filled with dark smog, a heavy spattering of rain and a lone horse rider on the streets in front of him. Spurring his own horse on with a flick of his heels, Molly pulled his horse up next to Fjords, keeping pace side by side. “Feel like being alone?” He asked, voice too serious to his own ears, and Fjord’s shoulders straightened out of their perpetual hunch. “I mean, I’m not going to care if you do or not, I’m gonna stay right here, but it’s always a friendly thing to ask, just in case.”

Fjord shot him a sidelong look. “Why do you care, Molly?”

Shrugging, Molly pulled the flask off of his hip and dangled it in Fjords face. When he didn’t move to take it, Molly pulled it back and took a swig before putting it back in its place. “I don’t know, the same reason you care whether Jester has enough healing potions, or if Caleb needs any more ink and scroll for his spells or if Beau got into another fight.”

“Yeah well, none of those things are happening to me, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“On the contrary,” Molly sniggered, indifferent on the outside but there was deep, burning concern hidden snug beneath his flesh. “I know what it’s like to have an off day. If you wanna talk about it, I’m always here. You know where I am, we share the same room.”

Sighing, Fjord shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand-”

“Try me.”

The abruptness in Molly’s voice had Fjord look at him closer now, eyes fully on him and this may have been the first time the purple tiefling had ever looked so sincere. “What?”

“Try me. You don’t think I don’t know what it’s like to wake up from a nightmare? Sure, you vomit seawater and I end up with more blood on the sheets, but I still have them. I know how you feel to not understand what your point of being here is, what your reason is for existing. I understand it all. So when I say ‘try me’ I mean there is nothing you could say to me that I wouldn’t understand and haven’t already felt.”

Giving in, Fjord rubbed his head. “Fine,” he grumbled, “but don’t tell the others. Jester will never let me hear the end of it.”

Casting a look back to the rest of their party travelling in the cart and remaining horses some ways back, Molly grinned. “Wouldn’t think of it.”

Like being sucked down a whirlpool with too-bright whiteness, the horses and Fjord shifted into nothingness and now Molly was in an old wooden room, ropes around his ankles and a pounding in his head. Someone was calling his name.

“Mollymauk,” it was hushed and panicked, but it was Caleb, his voice pounding in Molly’s ears. “Mollymauk, can you hear me?”

“What?” Molly mumbled, tongue too heavy and eyes too blurry as he looked around the room. “Where are we? What happened? Why am I-”

“You were drugged,” Caleb said simply, relaxing now that Molly was awake. “They slipped it in your tea. You gave us quite a scare.” He reached out and untangled the stray hairs from Molly’s horns as he saw Molly struggle to do it. “I don’t know where we are, we were brought here blindfolded but I can get us out, so do not worry.”

Molly was too tired to argue, his mind still slow and his tongue still like a mouthful of cotton balls, but he looked up at Caleb through half-lidded eyes. “So what are you doing here?”

“I volunteered to go with you.”

“You gave yourself up? For me?”

“ _Ja_.”

“Why?” The concept was so new, so strange to Molly that even the state he was in, he knew something was off. “No one would just sacrifice themselves up for me. Maybe Yasha, but you’re not Yasha, so you shouldn’t be here.” Even like this, Molly was using nonsensical ramblings and running his words in circles and he inwardly sighed at himself.

“True,” the wizard said in a way that means he didn’t think it was at all. “But to be fair, I did not think you would be able to escape on your own in your current... condition.” To make his point, Caleb watched his friend struggled to sit upright on the hard, dirty floor and grabbed Molly by the shoulders, pulling him over to his lap and lying his back down. “But do not worry. You are my friend, Mollymauk, and I will make sure you get out of here safe and sound.” Looking back down at the purple bundle on his lap, Caleb watched Molly’s eyes glass over again and his tail swish slower and he sighed. “However, maybe we should wait until you are feeling better, _ja_?”

“Maybe,” Molly mumbled, resting his head heavily on Caleb’s. “Why aren’t you drugged too?”

Caleb laughed, threading his fingers in Molly’s hair as he would Frumpkin and the kneading motion made Molly’s eyes fall shut.  “It seems they only wanted you, my friend. Do not worry, when you awake we will leave this place and find our friends.”

Wanting to argue Molly opened his mouth, but soft, sweet words in Zemnian flowed from Caleb’s lips and he found himself falling asleep to the song as the image wavered and he was plunged into a memory filled with blue and anger.

Both Jester and Beau were on the floor, chained to a wooden platform. In the crowd were the rest of the Nein, desperately calling out to their friends as they tried to force their way through the vast gaggle of people. Molly watched, stiff, as Jester called something out, something about being innocent, and something flew out of the crowd to land in her horns. Beau snarled, yanking hard on her chains to get to her friend, but the chains were stuck tight.

A man stood on the platform, long black mask and robes, light green skin and a great axe gripped tight in his hand. Jester hissed in Infernal and the man flinched, but Molly had to hold back a smile. _“I hope your kittens explode”_ wouldn’t be a threat in any other language, but Jester made it work.

In the memory, the nature of their crime was hidden in slick molasses and as Molly tried to reach for it, he got caught, stuck between confusion and determination. Something to do with a theft, or a fight? Probably both.

The crowd’s booing suddenly changed into loud cheering as the man off to the side in gold and red robes raised his hand, pointing to the man with the great axe then to the girls chained to the ground. Beau was bleeding, blood pouring steadily from her nose to drip onto her blue sash. Jester had her head down, face hidden behind her hair and tail whipping back and forth nervously behind her.

The man with the great axe- executioner Molly realised, looking back on the memory- stepped forward and raised the blade, the Mighty Nein in the crowd screaming and crying and begging to be let through, crying out to _stop stop stop_ , telling the girls they would be alright as the blade came down-

Molly was moving before he even knew what happened.

A sharp pain exploded in both his shoulders that forced him back a step, a large great axe caught between his swords, one glowing in holy light and the other crackling in frigid ice. Blood was pouring down his skin but Molly hardly noticed, eyes boring holes deep into the larger man as the crowd went silent.

Blood poured down Molly’s front as he slashed at the executioner, weaving tales of hatred and anger into his skin before the larger man fell off the stage, panting hard and groaning. Sliding on blood-soaked knees to his friends, Molly broke the chains with swift strikes with his swords and whispered to Jester in Infernal to _“Run and hide back at the wagon, Fjord will meet you there"_ before she nodded and he stood.

Holding his swords out to either side of him, hands trembling in rage and fangs bared, Molly called out over the crowd in the loudest voice he could muster. “If you want my family,” he roared, eyeing the king. “You’ll have to get through _me_.”

Dimly, he was aware of Yasha shoving through the crowd to join him on stage, of Caleb lighting his hands on fire to manage crowd control, Fjord and Nott rushing to the girls as Beau and Jester dragged themselves off the stage, but it all fell to background sound to Molly, body and mind focused on nothing but protecting his family and the feeling of blood on his skin, remembering black scales, a green grin and vibrant flames and hoped he was doing his family proud.

_“We’re all freaks and monsters here. No one messes with our own. We’re family, we all look after each other. Right?”_

The image flashed as Molly buried his scimitar into flesh to be rewarded with a spray to blood, speeding quickly to memories he held dear in his heart.

Sitting down with a little girl alone on the street, handing her a flower and watching her grin stretch across her face.

Paying for an old man’s ale, watching the confusion at being handed a jug after just being told he didn’t have enough.

Lying with a young couple as he read their fortunes and shuffled his cards, watching the joy glow on their faces.

Carrying a sleeping young boy back home after he stayed up all night and joined the search party to help find him and the joy and relief on his mother’s face as he was placed back in her arms.

Staying up late with a young woman at a bar, holding her as she cried into his shoulder and rubbed her back as she shook.

Letting a pair of druid twins weave flowers and twigs and leaves through his hair as he listened to them giggle.

The hag's voice came to him again, piercing and gravely, shattering the happiness of the memories and bringing dread and defeat back into his heart. Behind him, the disembodies and empty souls of the Nein floated in the air behind cages, dimming with each passing moment and screaming his name in a wail louder than the dead. They were dead, he realised, if he didn't do this. Molly closed his eyes.

_“If you give me what you want, I’ll give them back to you.”_

_“But my memories are the only things I have-”_

_A cackle, like the splitting of a mountain. “Exactly. You can have your memories or your friends. Your choice. But choose quickly little demon, they won’t last long.”_

_“So, you’ll just take my happiest memories?”_

_“In exchange for your friends.” Victory laced her words like the golden threads in Jesters dress and they both knew she had won._

_“I’ll just lose them? Forever? I’ll never remember them again?”_

_“Choose quickly dear. They don’t have long now. I’ll even let you see the ones you’ll lose, one last time...”_

With a sigh, Molly opened his eyes. He made a decision.

“Take them,” He called into the empty void. “I choose my friends. You can have the memories, give me back my family.”

In another flash, The Mighty Nein were lying on the floor of the inn, groaning as they came to consciousness. Faintly, Molly realised he couldn’t remember what he had given up for his friends return, but he decided he didn’t care.

Anything was worth them.


End file.
